Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

An empirical challenge to dissatisfaction theodicy

  • Published:
Sophia Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Some philosophers of religion claim that one reason God permits suffering is to make people dissatisfied with their lives so they will turn to him. That theodicy is inadequate because 1) that strategy of behavior modification constitutes punishment (in the psychologists’ sense), and 2) punishment is not the most effective strategy of behavior modification. Since God can be expected to use the most effective strategy available to him, such a theodicy is inadequate.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Endnotes

  1. Peter van Inwagen, ‘The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil’,God, Knowledge, and Mystery: Essays in Philosophical Theology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  2. C.S. Lewis,The Problem of Pain (London: Collins-Fontana, 1975), pp. 80–81.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Eleanor Stump, ‘The Problem of Evil’,Faith and Philosophy 2 ((1985), p. 411.

    Google Scholar 

  4. I am grateful to Jeff Jordan for helping me to see this distinction.

  5. ‘Punishment,’Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, Bernard Biens and Alan J. Feldman, eds. (New York: Gale Publishing, 1996), p. 302.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Barry Schwartz and Steven J. Robbins,Psychology of Learning and Behavior, 4th edition (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), p. 243.

    Google Scholar 

  7. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Society for Christian Philosophers meeting in Boulder, CO, October 2001; and at the Southwest Philosophical Society meeting in New Orleans, November 2004. It was then published in the conference proceedings,Southwest Philosophy Review 12 (2005), pp. 197–203. I am grateful to Jeff Jordan, Tom Senor, and Peter van Inwagen for helpful suggestions.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department, Texas Tech University, 79413-3092, Lubbock, TX

    Mark Owen Webb

Authors
  1. Mark Owen Webb
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Webb, M.O. An empirical challenge to dissatisfaction theodicy. SOPHIA 44, 23–29 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02912428

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02912428

Keywords

Search

Navigation